When Zero Tolerance Is Gun Control on Steroids: What Happens When ALL Self-Defense is Illegal?

Zero tolerance means that one person rescuing another person from violence might be prosecuted as a crime some day.

While there are times when one wishes for more police accountability, many other times they are the most sensible of public employees. In fact, they can often use common sense when others refuse to do so.

A recent instance of this occurred when a teen began attacking a legally blind kid by punching him. Another teen intervened by punching the bully and knocking him to the ground.

The high school junior was hailed as a hero for intervening after he saw the ‘visually impaired’ student being repeatedly hit round the head […]

Footage, filmed by a bystander, shows the teen knocking the bully to the ground with a single punch to stop the attack.

He leaves the boy lying bleeding on the ground while he checks on the visually impaired victim, before turning back to the attacker and asking him: ‘You trying to jump a f***ing blind kid, bro? What the f*** is your problem?’

So what did the police do? They arrested the one who was assaulting the legally blind youth.

The unnamed bully was today arrested on suspicion of misdemeanor battery and released to his parents, according to Huntington Beach Police.

Police officer Jennifer Marlatt told My News LA the incident did not appear to have any connection with the victim’s disability but said Austin and his attacker ‘have a history of not getting along’.

I guess the Daily Mail wants to assure us there was no “hate crime” involved against visually impaired people as a class. As if that matters.

The officer said the argument had begun after the victim walked past his tormenter, and quickly escalated into a physical fight.

‘Another student saw the fight and intervened to prevent the suspect from further assaulting the victim,’ Marlatt said in a news release.

So it looks like the police did the right thing.

Imagine a society where all violence was forbidden so that both of the teens who threw punches could be arrested and charged?

Does that sound crazy?

Yet that is pretty close to what happened, not because of the police, but because all of this happened to students while they were at school.

Huntington Beach High School has a “zero tolerance policy.”

They didn’t just suspend the rescuer; they kicked him off the football team.

What were the rescuer’s options when he saw the assailant punching the blind boy?

Was he supposed to say “Stop or I’ll say ‘Stop’ again”?

Was he supposed to leave the assailant to punch the kid more while he went and “notified the proper authorities”?

Was he supposed to put himself in the way of the punches and get himself hurt?

People in the community are outraged and are petitioning the school the reverse their decision.

But why should the school have the right to punish a person for actions that the police say were justified?

I can’t help but notice that punishing the rescuer is really similar to the philosophy of gun control. Gun banners want all people to give up their guns and entrust all defense with firearms to the police. In Britain, they are now starting to ban knives on the same principle. Punishing a kid for using his hands to protect a fellow student from assault is just another step down the road. It makes explicit what gun control might leave ambiguous: it means that people are forbidden to help themselves or one another. We are required to rely on government employees.